Poems original and translated By John Herman Merivale ... A new and corrected edition with some additional pieces |
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FOURTH CENTURY. |
 | Poems original and translated |  |
FOURTH CENTURY.
When Constantine was dead, and Rome had ceased to beSole mistress of the subject world, and seat of empery,
The lawless Scots and Picts, who long had kept, controll'd,
Within their Caledonian woods, now, rushing from their hold,
Burst thro' the Roman mounds, and, fiercely rolling down,
Laid waste fair Britain's peopled fields, and humbled tower and town.
303
By Valentinian, backward drove, and in their forests pent;
Restored Severus' wall, and the towers of Antonine,
And all the land Valentia named, between the Forth and Tyne:
A brief, though generous gleam of Rome's expiring power—
For now with silent pace glides on the inevitable hour;
And ere the century's close, from Roman bondage free,
Deserted Britain trembling found her long sought liberty.
| Poems original and translated | |